Pages

27 July 2024

Review: THE GOOD SISTER, Sally Hepworth

  •  this edition supplied by my local library
      • first published by Pan MacMillan Australia 2020
  • ISBN 978-1-76055-219-0
  • 330 pages

 Synopsis (publisher)

Fern Castle works in her local library. She has dinner with her twin sister Rose three nights a week. And she avoids crowds, bright lights and loud noises as much as possible. Fern has a carefully structured life and disrupting her routine can be ... dangerous.

When Rose discovers that she cannot fall pregnant, Fern sees her chance to pay her sister back for everything Rose has done for her. Fern can have a baby for Rose. She just needs to find a father. Simple.

Fern's mission will shake the foundations of the life she has carefully built for herself and stir up dark secrets from the past, in this quirky, rich and shocking story of unexpected love.

WINNER OF THE DAVITT AWARD FOR ADULT FICTION 2021

My Take

Sally Hepworth has become one of those Australian authors that I look out for,  and in this case, an authors whose past titles I track down.

Fern and Rose are fraternal twins, that is, not identical, in reality very different. 

We begin the story with Rose's journal, recently begun, but beginning with a major event in their lives when they were 12 years old. So we see things in the journal from Rose's point of view. But then we begin to see things from Fern's point of view in chapters headed with her name. Rose appears to be the controller of their lives while Fern comes over as introverted and retiring.

As we put together the picture of their past, we also begin to see their mother, mainly from Rose's point of view, and are led to conclude that their childhood was an unhappy one. 

And then comes the question of a baby, which Rose desperately wants, and Fern thinks she has a solution.

An engrossing read.

My rating: 4.7 

I've also read

No comments:

Post a Comment

If you want to leave a direct link to your blog posting, click name, you will see the URL field opening up. Type your name and leave your blog posting's URL and readers will be able to jump straight to your blog.
======================
Thank you also for your interest in my blog.
From time to time you will find these comments have been put into moderation - I'll try to approve them as quickly as I can.